


Palms With Silver

by ignipes



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-07
Updated: 2006-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes





	Palms With Silver

She knelt on the carpet and picked up the old woman's scarf with the end of her wand. It was stiff with blood, dull brown over the bright red and orange silk, tangled in a mass of curly black hair. One hundred years old and her hair was still as dark as night, her face unlined and her teeth straight.

"She's the third," Kingsley said from the doorway.

Tonks glanced over the shoulder. She could count as well as he could, but somebody had to say it. "What did the neighbors tell you?"

"They saw nothing, heard nothing, noticed nothing out of the ordinary," he said. "I'm going to speak with her granddaughter now," he said.

"Of course." Tonks dropped the scarf and sighed, listening to him walk away, his solid, steady footsteps fading down the long corridor. She could hear the voices from the kitchen at the back of the house.

Three fortune-tellers, three nights, three murders. The other scenes had been identical to this one: a quiet parlor, antique furniture, velvet pillows, crystal balls, tarot cards, and scrying basins scattered about in a cozy clutter, and one old woman dead on the floor, facedown in her own blood.

Tonks stood up, careful to hold her robes so they wouldn't drag in the blood. "What have you found, Gib--" She looked over at the old woman's desk. "Gibson?" Frankie? Freddie? She could never remember his first name. "Are you okay?"

Gibson nodded, but he was pale and sweat dotted his forehead, and his gaze was darting quickly around the room, over the bookshelves and brocaded furniture and mess of parchments on the desk, looking everywhere except at the old woman's body on the floor.

It still surprised her, even though she should be used to it by now. After Voldemort's defeat, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had become a very fashionable career choice for bright young wizards and witches -- most of whom had never seen a body before. They didn't realize that death in the headlines of the Prophet wasn't the same as death cold and congealed in a twisted heap at their feet.

"What have you found?" Tonks asked again, stepping between Gibson and the body. "Anything unusual?"

Gibson swallowed. "There's, ah, there's no diary. For appointments and engagements."

Tonks frowned. "We'll have to ask her granddaughter if she used one."

Gibson nodded, and his gaze flicked away from the desk toward the floor just behind her. "I don't--" He paused, swallowed again, looked out the window. The sun was just rising over the top of the row of houses across the street, blinding in a clear winter sky. Tonks waited. Kingsley's voice rumbled from the kitchen, and somewhere in the house was a clock was chiming.

"I don't understand how somebody could hurt these harmless old ladies," Gibson said very quickly, all in one breath.

Because, Tonks thought, some people like to hurt harmless old ladies. Some people find that a blow to the head is easier to live with than a difficult truth or a dangerous secret or a perceived threat. And some people just like to kill, because they're angry or greedy or scared or bored or for no reason at all, no motive they ever admit even after they've been caught, questioned, and locked away.

She shook her head and smiled ruefully.

Gibson looked alarmed. "What's so--"

"Nothing." She was supposed to be training him, not providing him with an existential crisis of the crime-fighting variety. "The fact that they're all fortune-tellers is important. Not one, but three."

"He wanted his fortune told?" Gibson said, in the tone of one guessing an answer in class. "Maybe he didn't like what they told him? All three of them."

With more enthusiasm than she felt, Tonks agreed brightly, "It's a start. Now we have to see if we can find anything that tells us what this old woman told her murderer. How are you at divination?"

He grinned. "Terrible."

"Me too. That makes us perfect for the job. You stay with the desk; I'll see what I can find over here." Over here, with the body. Tonks turned and looked down at the old woman. A glint of light caught her eye, and she bent down, prodding at the woman's stiff fingers with her wand.

A handful of silver sickles fall out of her palm. The killer had paid the old woman for her trouble.


End file.
